


Close Your Eyes, See Through Mine

by sparksfly7



Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-20 14:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8252123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparksfly7/pseuds/sparksfly7
Summary: “You were,” Myungsoo starts, and doesn’t even know how to finish that sentence. He always has too many words he wants to use to describe Sungyeol and yet never enough at the same time.
Myungsoo and Sungyeol after their Weekly Idol appearance.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by [their recent appearance on Weekly Idol](https://youtu.be/7KU2zVb93_Y). This is my first MyungYeol fic. I've read their fics for years, especially [Lirazel's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lirazel) but never got to writing one of my own.
> 
> Look at this cutie pie:
> 
>  
> 
>  

It feels good to be on _Weekly Idol_ again. This is the longest that they haven’t been on it in a long, long time. Myungsoo remembers one of their first appearances on _Weekly Idol_ , when they had looked past L and seen Myungsoo and they hadn’t treated that like a bad thing. The MCs, especially Hyungdon, always end up calling him Myungsoo, and in truth he doesn’t mind.

Woollim had always told him to be L, to be the cold city man, to be chic and silent and mysterious. Before Myungsoo debuted, he thought he would be terrible at it because he’s nothing like L at all, but then afterwards it was surprisingly easy to be L, to wear L like a sleek, shiny costume and slink out of it offstage into one of his cozy shirts that he’s worn so many times the colour has faded to grey and he could poke his thumbs through the sleeves.

Throughout the years, like his worn shirts, Myungsoo had poked out more and more through the sleeve of L. At first Woollim had been worried about this, about their visual losing his suave image, but once they saw how much Inspirits liked Myungsoo, they were reassured enough to leave him alone.

Anyway, Myungsoo is grateful to _Weekly Idol_ , to Hyungdon and Defconn, because it’s one of the first shows that he got to be Myungsoo and he was welcome. When he found out about Hyungdon’s hospitalization due to anxiety, he contacted him to ask after him and wish him the best in his recovery. He can understand the stress of having to put on a persona all the time, except it must have been a lot harder for Hyungdon, who always has to be so energetic and cheerful and entertaining.

Myungsoo really doesn’t have to do much to be L, just turns the dial down on his personality. He can’t imagine what it’s like to have to constantly turn the dial up, until the volume drowns your own self out. It must be exhausting, and he’s glad that Hyungdon has some time off to quietly recover and be himself again, to learn the latter if he’s forgotten.

He wonders what would have happened if he had to be L throughout his whole career, if he had been forced to permanently keep Myungsoo locked away. He can’t imagine it, really, and he’s glad he doesn’t have to.

 

When they’re on the van, Woohyun is still teasing Sunggyu about his _Up & Down_ dance. “Really hyung, if we were competing for who could dance the most like a slug, you would have won hands down.”

“I was the only one who tried a sexy dance, okay?” Sunggyu crosses his arms over his chest. “That takes nerve.”

“You definitely had a lot of nerve, hyung,” Woohyun says, looking almost serious before his grin betrays him. “You made me really nervous.”

“Hey, it’s not like you won either.”

“That’s because Sungyeol shone so much.” Woohyun throws an arm around Sungyeol, the shoulder where Myungsoo isn’t leaning into him. “Honestly, you could have competed in Produce 101. I think you would have made it into I.O.I. for sure.”

“Sungyeol hyung does look very nice in that uniform,” Sungjong says approvingly.

“See, you have Sungjong’s approval yet again,” Woohyun says. “Our slug hyung here couldn’t even get it once.”

“Nam Woohyun,” Sunggyu starts in his Annoyed Hyung voice, but none of them pay any attention to it by now.

Sungyeol shrugs. “I’ve danced that so many times before. You guys actually went up and did your own moves.”

“Howon hyung was really good too,” Sungjong says. “That Infinite style _Ah-Choo_ dance was really something.”

“It’s a shame you didn’t get to dance, Sungjongie,” Howon says. “I’m sure you would have won.”

Sungjong purses his lips. “I think I’ve done more than enough girl group dances throughout the years. It was fun to be the judge for once.”

“That does look interesting,” Dongwoo says, “and you were a great judge.”

Sungjong smiles. “Thanks, hyung.” He turns to Myungsoo. “You did a really good job too, Myungsoo hyung. I bet your _shy shy shy_ is going to be a big hit.”

Woohyun imitates the motion again. “The Inspirits will love it.”

Dongwoo grins broadly. “You were so cute, Myungsoo! You did a really good job.”

“Thanks, hyung,” Myungsoo says with a smile. “You did a really great job yourself.”

“Not that it was hard to look really great when you’re going after slug hyung,” Woohyun says, throwing a wink in Sunggyu’s direction.

“Yah, Nam Woohyun—!”

Sungyeol looks at Myungsoo, eyes shadowed by his fringe. “You were really cute,” he says quietly, and Myungsoo’s heart skips.

“Thanks,” Myungsoo says, unable to keep his smile from swallowing his face.

Sungyeol smiles back, small and soft, and Myungsoo wants to wrap his smile around himself and stay cocooned in it forever. However, Sungyeol’s smiles rarely last for very long, and sure enough this one fades away soon enough.

“You were,” Myungsoo starts, and doesn’t even know how to finish that sentence. He always has too many words he wants to use to describe Sungyeol and yet never enough at the same time.

“Good enough to win,” Sungyeol says, still in so low of a voice that Myungsoo forgets they’re in a van with the rest of the members and their manager, thinks that it’s just them in their room with Sungyeol’s endless limbs sprawled everywhere and his hair constantly flopping into his eyes until Myungsoo brushes it away. “I didn’t expect that.”

“You were the best,” Myungsoo says with absolute conviction. “You deserved to win.”

“You always think that, idiot,” Sungyeol says. “You should never be the judge because you wouldn’t be fair.”

Myungsoo frowns. Sure, he likes Sungyeol’s girl group dances, likes most things about Sungyeol, but that doesn’t mean he’s blind. He watches Sungjong dance all the time; he has standards.

“What’s this about being fair?” Woohyun chimes in. “Are we talking about how unfair it was that we didn’t all get presents?”

Sungyeol snorts. “Like anyone is going to buy you a gold ring. Or any kind of ring.”

“Hey, excuse me,” Woohyun says in great indignation. “You’re just jealous of all the people who would.”

“Your mom doesn’t count,” Sungyeol says, and then they’re off like usual. Myungsoo knows that he can’t match up to Sungyeol’s biting wit and he’s glad Sungyeol has Woohyun to banter with, although sometimes he wishes that he could be a match for Sungyeol, that he could be enough for Sungyeol.

 

Myungsoo hears footsteps behind him from where he’s sprawled on his bed and doesn’t raise his head from his laptop. He can tell from the sound of the footsteps that it’s Sungyeol.

Sungyeol groans when he sees what Myungsoo’s watching: a performance of _Pick Me_ from one of their special summer stages. He would have liked to watch the _Weekly Idol_ one, but the episode hasn’t aired yet so he couldn’t find any footage online.

“You’re watching this again? You’ve seen me dance it a thousand times,” Sungyeol says, and Myungsoo almost corrects him and tells him that this is only the second time that he’s seen Sungyeol perform the whole thing in person (even though it wasn’t even the whole thing because they hadn’t let him finish), because Sungyeol always shoos him away during rehearsal and it’s not like he can just sit in the audience and watch him. “I don’t know what’s still so interesting about it.”

Myungsoo has only watched Sungyeol dance _Pick Me_ in full once, but frankly even if he had watched him dance it a hundred times already he still wouldn’t tire of watching him. He doesn’t get tired of things he loves, like black or manga or udon or Sungyeol, especially when he’s dancing with a vigour that he doesn’t even always put into Infinite’s dances.

Myungsoo knows that Sungyeol isn’t confident about his dancing, that he complains about how even though he executes the moves correctly, he still looks awkward and gangly. Sungyeol is proud of his height, but he doesn’t like the sharp angles of his joints, the limber length of his limbs. Myungsoo will never understand why Sungyeol is so unhappy about himself, because Myungsoo couldn’t be happier with Sungyeol; he likes all the things about Sungyeol that Sungyeol regularly gripes about.

“Yah, Kim Myungsoo! Are you even listening to me?”

Myungsoo blinks. “What did you say?”

Sungyeol closes the lid of Myungsoo’s laptop. “Stop watching these videos. You’re too obsessed with me doing girl group dances.”

“I’m not.”

“How can you even deny it?”

“It’s not like I only like it when you dance girl group songs. I like it when you dance, period.” _I like you, period_ , Myungsoo wants to say but he knows from repeated personal experience how Sungyeol cringes when he says things like this, so he forcibly swallows the words even as their bitter aftertaste coats his tongue.

“You also like to stare into space for hours,” Sungyeol scoffs. “You’re just weird.”

Myungsoo frowns. “It’s not the same.”

“What, your levels of weirdness? Well sure, there are differences but—”

“I know you don’t think you’re good at dancing, but you’re a lot better than you think you are.”

Sungyeol is silent for a moment. “I don’t think I’m terrible at dancing.”

“You don’t think that _now_ ,” Myungsoo says, remembering how long it took for Sungyeol to be confident enough to sing without his shoulders hunching in. “It’s the same thing with singing.”

“Well, excuse me that I can’t be good at everything like Howon.”

“You don’t have to be good at everything.” Myungsoo takes a breath before his frustration boils over. “You don’t have to be the best at everything; you just have to be the best at being yourself.”

Sungyeol looks like he’s going to snipe something sharp, the way he usually does, but then his shoulders deflate and he releases a long sigh, like an unplugged inflatable toy whose air is draining.

“I’m trying,” he says quietly. “I’m trying to be just the best me, rather than comparing to others.”

Myungsoo beams. “You’re doing a good job.”

Sungyeol snorts. “You always think I’m doing a good job, idiot.”

“No, I just believe in you. It’s different.”

Sungyeol gives him an incredulous look, like he’s saying _I can’t believe that someone like you exists_ , but not in a negative way. It took Myungsoo a while to decipher that, but he knows now.

“Well, I’m glad that someone believes in me at least,” Sungyeol says after a moment.

“There are lots of other people who believe in you,” Myungsoo says. “Like Sungjongie and the hyungs and—”

“Sunggyu hyung wouldn’t know what belief in me is if it strutted up to him and slapped him in the face.”

Myungsoo’s face scrunches up when he tries to imagine that, but he can’t figure out what belief would look like. Sungyeol, unexpectedly, cups his jaw and then pokes his cheek. Myungsoo stares at him, blinking, and realizes that Sungyeol just poked his dimple, the less prominent one.

“You have no idea how cute you were today,” Sungyeol suddenly says. “They should get you to do the _shy shy shy_ more.”

“I can do it for you every day if you want,” Myungsoo says, tone teasing but intent sincere.

Sungyeol makes a face. “Every day? No thanks. I like it but not that much.”

Myungsoo can’t help a flutter of disappointment at that, because he would love to watch Sungyeol dancing every day and he knows that Sungyeol could not see him for a day, even multiple days, and be more than fine with it. He knows that Sungyeol wants his space, while all Myungsoo wants is for the space between them to be erased.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing this every day though,” Sungyeol says, poking Myungsoo’s cheek again. “This dimple here doesn’t always show up when you smile.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Not when you smirk like L,” Sungyeol says. “Only when you smile, really smile, as Myungsoo.”

“Oh.” Myungsoo doesn’t know what to make of that.

“Myungsoo,” Sungyeol says, his voice soft and hard at the same time. “I’m trying, okay? I am.”

“I know.”

“It’s not easy.”

“I know,” Myungsoo says again.

Sungyeol looks at him for a long moment. “I’m trying in part for you. Because of you.”

Myungsoo feels the weight in Sungyeol’s gaze, hears it in his voice. “I know you can do it,” he says firmly. “Not because I’m unfair or however you put it, but because—I know you can, okay?”

“Okay,” Sungyeol says, and pokes Myungsoo’s cheek again. Myungsoo puts his hand over Sungyeol’s, and for once Sungyeol is the one to lace their fingers together and he doesn’t let go for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> MyungYeol thank you for your time.
>
>> Shy Shy Shy Myungsoo ver. feat Sungyeol ◟ʕ´∀`ʔ◞ [#엘](https://twitter.com/hashtag/%EC%97%98?src=hash) [#명수](https://twitter.com/hashtag/%EB%AA%85%EC%88%98?src=hash) [pic.twitter.com/BmikIotVxA](https://t.co/BmikIotVxA)
>> 
>> — 에테르 (@eteruart) [September 14, 2016](https://twitter.com/eteruart/status/776003338378711041)  
> 


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